Welcome to the May 2013 Freebie Challenge: "Yesterday's Future"

Even before we could make movies (let alone make renders), we've been using visual media to tell stories about the future. One of the first colour movies was an adaptation of Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon," and Lang's "Metropolis" is a classic of the silent-film era.

The '50s saw an explosion of visual futurism, with Colliers' Magazine running illustrated stories about possible space stations and Moon missions, and Hollywood releasing such gems as "Destination Moon," "Forbidden Planet," "The Day The Earth Stood Still," and George Pal's "War of the Worlds" (and some not-so-fine examples such as "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"), with their plastic-and-rayguns futures. Sci-fi book covers were adorned with square-jawed heroes, damsels in distress, and mighty rocket ships. And who can forget "Buck Rogers" (or "Duck Dodgers")?

The '60s gave us "Lost in Space" and "Star Trek," swapping the plastic for velour and miniskirts - and "The Prisoner," swapping the idealism for mind-games. Time marched on, and capable women, friendly androids, and sympathetic aliens took their places on novel dust-jackets and movie soundstages alongside the men. We've seen the dystopic futures of "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report," the post-apocolypse futures of "Mad Max" and "Nausicaa," the near-utopian future of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the just-like-the-present-but-in-space "Star Wars" and "Babylon 5," the cyberspace stories of "Tron," "ReBoot," and "The Matrix," and many, many, many more.

Of course, the details of those futures haven't matched what actually came to pass ... but we only know that with the benefit of hindsight.

This month, look through the lenses of the past century and show us what our parents or grandparents may have thought the future would be like - either a completely original work or a homage to a classic (or not-so-classic) story.

Everybody who wins or places gets store credit... and more! For now, here's what's on tap:

Entry Gifts
Krissy has kindly provided a bottle of SunCream, just in time for the Summer Fun! Everyone who enters will receive this gift. (No render yet.)

Honorable Mentions (2)
$5 gift card from robkelk
celebi's textures for the MFD - in the shot below, A3 is wearing the Firebird texture and V4 is wearing the green texture

Third place
$8 gift card from DAZ3D
$10 gift card from Jaderail
celebi's textures for the MFD
And Eustace Scrubb has promised "a full mask (with integrated goggles and bowler hat), with an assortment of unmapped material zones ... [and] a mapped and untextured .DUF prop mask (rather like a sinister Mardi Gras mask) for M4, with several morphs to deform the brow." No render available yet... (EDIT: The gloves that were previously mentioned probably won't be part of the package.)

Second place
$12 gift card from DAZ3D
$15 gift card from Jaderail
celebi's textures for the MFD
And the second-place winner will receive something from Mr Sparky ... that you get to choose! He's been kind enough to offer anything from his CP, Rendo or PoserDirect store, only excepting jointly-owned or created products. Since I don't know what will be chosen, you'll have to pick a card... but only one card.

First place
$15 gift card from DAZ3D
$20 gift card from Jaderail
celebi's textures for the MFD
And, through the kindness of DocMikeB of Shifters Evolution at Dreamslayer Artworks, the fabulous HOUSEBOAT that was the Grand Prize in last month’s Freebie Challenge remains on offer to the winner of this month’s Challenge. This will be your FINAL CHANCE to win this highly detailed model—it will not be available again after this month. And it goes ONLY to the first-place winner in May. This, I have a render for.

Your host this month is Rob Kelk (known here by the handle "robkelk"), the maintainer of a noticeable fraction of the Free Resources lists here in the Freepozitory.

Your judges this month are jeeperz from here on the Daz forums, and Ankhani and Ross van Loan from the Drunkard's Walk forums (where we do sci-fi and SF all the time, but with words instead of pictures - if that sounds like fun, come visit!)

This month, look through the lenses of the past century and show us what our parents or grandparents may have thought the future would be like ...

Hey! What's this about "our parents or grandparents"???

When I was growing up in the late 1950s and '60s, I was entirely led to believe that everyone would soon all be kicking back and watching the robots do all the work.

Which is my way of saying, "Great topic!"

Peter Thiel, who made a fortune off Facebook, dismisses the social media and modern gadgets as fluff compared to, for example, the Apollo space program. He launched a venture-capital firm called the Founders Fund that famously asks, "What happened to the future? We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."

My generation often shares the "flying cars" lament, as in this July 2012 "Non Sequitur" strip by Wiley Miller ...

This month, look through the lenses of the past century and show us what our parents or grandparents may have thought the future would be like ...

Hey! What's this about "our parents or grandparents"???

When I was growing up in the late 1950s and '60s, I was entirely led to believe that everyone would soon all be kicking back and watching the robots do all the work.

That means you get to go back to the pulps - Campbell, Gernsback, "Doc" Smith, early van Vogt and Asimov ... :)

Which is my way of saying, "Great topic!"

Peter Thiel, who made a fortune off Facebook, dismisses the social media and modern gadgets as fluff compared to, for example, the Apollo space program. He launched a venture-capital firm called the Founders Fund that famously asks, "What happened to the future? We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."

My generation often shares the "flying cars" lament, as in this July 2012 "Non Sequitur" strip by Wiley Miller ...

This month, look through the lenses of the past century and show us what our parents or grandparents may have thought the future would be like ...

Hey! What's this about "our parents or grandparents"???

When I was growing up in the late 1950s and '60s, I was entirely led to believe that everyone would soon all be kicking back and watching the robots do all the work.

That means you get to go back to the pulps - Campbell, Gernsback, "Doc" Smith, early van Vogt and Asimov ... :)

Which is my way of saying, "Great topic!"

Peter Thiel, who made a fortune off Facebook, dismisses the social media and modern gadgets as fluff compared to, for example, the Apollo space program. He launched a venture-capital firm called the Founders Fund that famously asks, "What happened to the future? We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."

My generation often shares the "flying cars" lament, as in this July 2012 "Non Sequitur" strip by Wiley Miller ...

I'm only one generation behind you, and I want my flying car, too!

Flying car is supposed to be ready to go this year sometime, last I read. It will not be cheap...and I'm afraid. There are so many idiots on the road who can't control their vehicles...I'm not sure I want them to be flying. You see accidents on the news where a car drove out of control into a house. Imagine that, only coming through the roof instead of into the basement or first floor. :ohh:

If I recall correctly, flying cars have been a year or two away for a couple of decades now... (Remember the one in one of the Roger Moore era James Bond movies?)

Honestly, I suspect the closest we'll get to a flying car is a Cessna.Doesn't mean I don't want one...

There is one in testing now, made right here in Massachusetts. That one has wings that fold out. There is one in Europe that already meets all international (US and Europe and many other countries') standards for both driving and air vehicles and is taking order reservations already. That one uses modern gyro-copter technology. Gyro-copters are extremely safe because they can't stall. The rotor keeps rotating even if the engine fails, allowing a safe landing. And there is the SkyCar, which will have a working prototype by end of year. I'm a little concerned about that one, though. He moved production to China. They seem to like putting lead in everything...it might be too heavy to fly. :-P

All of these will be too expensive for the average driver for quite a few years, but they will be available. Prices I saw range around the price of a nice home, actually more than I paid for my house. The first two will fly at a maximum of 4,000 feet, so they will not require air traffic controllers or flight plans. You will need a Sport Pilot license in the US. All will have to take off and land at a small airport, it is illegal to take off from the highway.

If you count "hoisted into the air by a crane" as "working"... But Moller went into Chapter 11 back in 2009, according to this article, so I wouldn't count on seeing that flying car any time soon.
The individual; not the company. Once he filed for personal bankruptcy; whoever he owed money to couldn't touch the company.

I guess they redesigned it or something. As they are prototypes, I'm sure as they find issues, or find a better way of doing something, they make another prototype.

Dana

I'm not a fan of the design but no Crane is needed to fly. In the early test flights a Safety tether was used. The new design is considered air worthy if you could afford to fly it.

I'm not sure I'd want to drive down the highway, or even the local roads, with those little tires. I don't know what the roads are like where you live, but up here we get frost heaves in the winter, and a lot of potholes. The road can be bumpy. Those little things would wear out really quick, and probably give quite the uncomfortable ride.

A flying car would be fantastic (for those driving them and not underneath them anyway). It would certainly be fun to try, but 'm not holding my breath.

A question about the contest: Are limited-time freebies or platinum club freebies that are not currently available or available to everyone acceptable in the contest, or should we limit ourselves to freebies that everybody can get right now?